New smoking regulations likely by mid-2015, says official

Beijing's new regulations on tobacco control are expected to come out in the first half of 2015, said Liu Zejun, head of the office of Beijing Patriotic Health Campaign Committee on Tuesday.

The draft of the new regulations, which will impose stricter punishment for smoking in public places where the government has prohibited smoking, has been submitted to the Legal Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality for review, Liu said.

His remarks came at a conference to publicize the performance of government departments, State-owned enterprises and other government-related organizations in a campaign to ban smoking inside their office buildings.

More than 170 organizations took part in the campaign. Experts conducted an assessment of 168 members' performance from September to November 2013, of whom 82 percent reached the standards set in the campaign, according to the committee.

Of the members, more than 1,000 staff workers who smoked took part in a contest to try abstaining from smoking for at least 100 days, from Sept 1 to Dec 9 in 2013. A lucky draw was carried out among those who succeeded. One of the workers won a laptop, and 10 others each won a smartphone.